Almost exactly 12 months after five-year-old April Jones was abducted and murdered, her family and friends have been finally able to lay her to rest.

Hundreds of mourners, all wearing a splash of pink – April's favourite colour – gathered on Thursday to remember the child, who was snatched as she played on her bicycle and subsequently killed by former abattoir worker Mark Bridger.

It was a chance for the town of Machynlleth in mid-Wales to say goodbye to April, remembered as a bright, fun, sometimes mischievous girl. But it was also a time for anger to re-emerge that Bridger still refuses to say what happened to her body, which remains missing despite the biggest search in British policing history.

The Rev Kathleen Rogers, who led the service, said the number of mourners who packed St Peter's church showed how many lives April had touched in her five years. They had come, she said, to celebrate the life of a "sweet, innocent girl" but said there remained anger and confusion that she had been so cruelly taken. People were feeling "pain, emptiness, anger and despair".

Mourners outside St Peter's church. Photograph: Rebecca Naden/Reuters

April was abducted by Bridger as she played with a friend close to her home on 1 October last year. In the spring, he was convicted of her murder and will spend the rest of his life in prison.

At the end of his trial, the girl's family appealed for him to reveal where her body was, saying that they would find it hard to move on until they could recover it.

Bridger has refused to help. All the parents have been left with are 17 fragments of bone found in the fireplace of his cottage in the village of Ceinws, four miles from Machynlleth.

Those scant remains, in a cream-coloured coffin, were driven from the family home on the Bryn-y-Gog estate in a hearse drawn by two horses wearing pink feathered plumes. April's parents, Paul and Coral, and her brother Harley, 11, followed in a car while her 17-year-old sister, Jazmin, walked the mile or so to the church, leading scores of mourners who followed the cortege on foot. April's mother sobbed as she walked into the church while Harley shook and choked back tears.

A horse-drawn carriage takes the coffin to the church in Machynlleth. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

Inside the church a montage of images of family life, created by Jazmin as part of her GCSE coursework, was on display. The 250-strong congregation inside the church included schoolfriends of April, police officers who investigated the case and rescue workers who helped in the search following her disappearance. Also present were counsellors who have worked with residents to try to help the community recover.

Others who had not been able to get into the church listened to the service relayed via loudspeakers. Among them was a former partner of Bridger and one of the jurors at his trial.

Hymns included one composed by a bereavement counsellor following the Dunblane tragedy and Blest Are the Pure in Heart, sung in Welsh. A poem by a local writer was read out by one of April's teachers. Entitled April, it began: "On this beautiful sunlit autumn day, A desperate sadness casts long shadows across our anxious and questioning world."

April Jones, five, who was abducted on 1 October last year. Photograph: Dyfed-Powys police/PA

April's parents said they did not want flowers to be sent but asked that donations go to a church project to sponsor a five-year-old girl in Uganda. The girl will be sponsored until she finished her education and any spare money will be used to help other villagers.

Not all wellwishers had heard the request: one bouquet left at the church read: "April, star shining bright in the sky, sleep well." Another said: "Taken far too soon. Spread your angel wings."